![]() ![]() It took him about two or three hours to book an appointment within reach due to differences in state and federal government vaccine systems, Rios said.Īfter getting his vaccine, Rios said he shared his experience and the resources he used on Twitter. McCormick freshman Marcos Rios said he began learning about the “confusing” appointment booking process when he went to sign up for his own vaccine. Some students like Karp have become adept at vaccine hunting, helping other students find appointments off-campus. The vaccine appointment was booked within a matter of minutes.Īlthough Illinois expanded eligibility to those aged 16 and older on April 12, Northwestern does not yet have enough supply to vaccinate the entire student body The University recommended students stay patient or seek vaccination opportunities off-campus. Karp, a Medill junior, had found an appointment on hold at a Mariano’s in Lincoln Park. “I hope that I can help a huge number of people like this in the future in some way,” he said.Weinberg freshman Nina Petrouski had been struggling to find a vaccine appointment when her friend put in touch with vaccine booker Eli Karp. Hazzard, who graduated with a degree in geographic information systems, is also still working as a GIS technician with BGE, although his experience with the Facebook group has given him valuable experience and a potential seed for continued public health work. The federal government started offering up to four free tests per household today through, but most Americans won’t receive them until the end of this month. There is some hope that the squeeze on testing resources will ease soon the Omicron variant has been likened to a flash flood in its swiftly increasing and then decreasing impacts in other countries, and some states where it first took hold are registering declining case counts. “It’s full of a lot of great people who want to do everything they can to get information out.” “It’s really a very positive online community,” said Hazzard, whose site also reports the state’s community transmission rate by county each day and has posted tips about how to avoid buying counterfeit N95 and KN95 masks. The page gained more than 3,000 new followers between the end of December and mid-January, bringing the community to nearly 80,000 members.Īnd just like with the group’s earlier work on finding vaccines, the posts and comments are a productive discussion-rare these days when social media collides with COVID-19: “I just found these (tests) at the Walgreen’s in Timonium … The girl behind the counter said not too many people know (they) are there and they usually do not get a lot of them ” “Clarks ACE Hardware Ellicott City has kits ” “I really appreciate you taking the time to gather this information and post it. Last month, the group began crowdsourcing information on stores that had rapid tests in stock and places with open appointments for the more accurate, but more labor-intensive, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests. “We thought that the need for testing was so great that we were going to expand our focus,” Hazzard said. As the founder of the Facebook group Maryland Vaccine Hunters, Hazzard and a group of volunteers had helped collect appointments and direct people to shots when the vaccines first became available last February. For University of Maryland graduate Elliot Hazzard ’17, this was another opportunity-and a responsibility.
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